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Finalist: Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo , by Rajiv Joseph

A play about the chaotic Iraq war that uses a network of characters, including a caged tiger, to ponder violent, senseless death, blending social commentary with tragicomic mayhem.

Winners

Prize Winner in Drama in 2010:

Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey

A powerful rock musical that grapples with mental illness in a suburban family and expands the scope of subject matter for musicals. Drama

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Drama in 2010:

Kristoffer Diaz

A play invoking the exaggerated role-playing of professional wrestling to explore themes from globalization to ethnic stereotyping, as the audience becomes both intimate insider and ringside spectator.

Sarah Ruhl

An inventive work that mixes comedy and drama as it examines the medical practice of a 19th century American doctor and confronts questions of female sexuality and emancipation.

The Jury

Charles McNulty(chair )

drama critic

John M. Clum

professor of theater studies and English

Nilo Cruz*

playwright

David Rooney

chief theater critic

Hedy Weiss

theater and dance critic

Winners in Drama

Lynn Nottage

A searing drama set in chaotic Congo that compels audiences to face the horror of wartime rape and brutality while still finding affirmation of life and hope amid hopelessness.

2010 Prize Winners

Paul Harding

A powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality.

Hank Williams

For his craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life.

Liaquat Ahamed

A compelling account of how four powerful bankers played crucial roles in triggering the Great Depression and ultimately transforming the United States into the world's financial leader.

Rae Armantrout

A book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading.